The principles and techniques for the production of chemiluminescent light are well known as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,678,608.
For several years, devices composed of translucent pipes or tubes have been in existence which are filled with a liquid which can generate chemiluminescent light. The devices are particularly useful and appreciated for signaling, as night beacons, advertising, decoration, or for entertainment. The devices which are currently known can be grouped in two principal categories, each one of which presents serious drawbacks which are alleviated by the devices of the present invention.
Devices of the first category, and the chemicals useful therein are described for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,597,362 and 3,576,987. They contain, in addition to the principal chemiluminescent liquid, a glass tube which is filled with an activating liquid. This glass tube breaks when the user, at the wanted time, bends the device, thus causing the mixture of the two liquids and the emission of light. A serious drawback of this type of device consists of the necessary restriction in the length of the glass tube, generally at most one-half meter, because a long glass tube could easily be broken prematurely, either by the user himself, or during handling, transport, packaging and, even during manufacturing. In addition, the glass material, in some instances, is not chemically inert with respect to the liquids used in the device and therefore, over long periods of time, changes in the chemicals occur during storage. There also may be a certain aversion to the breaking of the glass because some users may be afraid that shards of glass could possibly perforate the wall and thereby cause injury to the user.
The second category of devices is characterized by the use of a chemiluminescent liquid which is activated in advance with the corresponding activator then placed in the device in question. Thereafter, the device is quickly placed in a freezing environment whereupon the low temperature stops the chemiluminescent emission reaction. When the user decides to use the light, he removes it from the cold and light emission resumes upon warming. The drawback in this case, as can readily be seen, consists in the need to maintain the device in a freezing environment which generally involves the use of portable refrigerators filled with liquid nitrogen, during the entire sequence of storage, transportation, and sale to the final user. These constraints are expensive and the use of this device is, in addition, less satisfactory from the standpoint of light emission than the first device, described above.
Other devices have also been described which combine the two liquids, in separate compartments of the container, in which the separation is achieved by a various means such as rupturable seals which permits their mixture at the time of use. In this regard, reference is made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,749,620; 3,539,794; 4,061,910; 3,149,943 and French Patent No. 87 11296.4. Devices having two compartments, each having a tubular shape are shown. They can be aligned along the same axis, the total length of such an assembly however, necessarily remaining very small in comparison to the diameter since mixing is made very difficult, if not impossible, because of the distance between the liquids. To prepare a very long tube one could clearly design a device with an alternation of tubular compartments, all along the same axis, as extensions of each other, which would contain alternately the chemiluminescent liquid and the activator with interposition of the separating devices which the user would then have to activate all at the desired moment. The placement of such a succession of antagonistic liquids would result in a high manufacturing cost and its use would be extremely difficult.